The deal with copper fouling

[lebl468]

I am in the process of switching my milsurps to "leaded fuel", my question being is it true you have to remove ALL traces of copper fouling from the bores? I heard the best way is with amonia, is this true?

[clearwater]

I am in the process of switching my milsurps to "leaded fuel", my question being is it true you have to remove ALL traces of copper fouling from the bores? I heard the best way is with amonia, is this true?

Sweet's with ammonia works well, but don't leave it in the bore longer than it
recommends.

I have found that Wipeout, left overnight, uses a lot less patches and less time. Keep wipeout off
old gunstocks, it can take off the finish.

[Throwback]

I don't like wipeout for any significant cleaning. The patches come out blue at first and then come out clean but the gun is still dirty! Seriously had me scratching my head with a badly fouled pre-64. Sweets and similar solvents are better. For best results I have never found anything better than JB and Kroil used together. It is the only thing that has ever worked as well as advertised.

[StarMetal]

Read this thread over on Accurate Forum:

http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/645100744/m/1591059301

Joe

[FAsmus]

lebl468;

Don't bother with fancy cleaning compounds and lots of action with the brushes and rags through perfectly good rifle barrels!

Simply make up a good conventional cast bullet load in the given caliber and go out to the range and shoot some 40 or 50 rounds for fun and general enjoyment. (offhand practice is always good) By the time you're done ALL traces of metal fouling will be washed out of the bore.

You'll have had and enjoyable day and the rifle will be cleaned besides - just never make the mistake of shooting jacketed bullets again!

Good evening,
Forrest

[Ben]

FAsmus

Firing 40 - 50 cast rounds through a heavily Cu fouled barrel will remove ALL TRACES OF METAL FOULING FROM THE BORE.

You must know something that I don't know ? ? ?

[454PB]

JB Bore Compound.

[docone31]

I run full tilt paper patched loads through my Milsurps. No copper now.
Took a few loads to dial them in, the bore got cleaner each course of fire.

[Newfoundlander2]

Paper pateched rounds will "iron" fouling into the bore. JB and Kroil.

[BD]

I've given up trying to clean old milsurps with elbow grease alone. I spent the $10 necessary to build a "foul out" rig and I give each new addition the treatment when I first get it in. There's just too many layers of different flavors of fouling. A steel rod, rubber stopper, 2 D-cells, clear amonia and some scrap wire is quicker, and easier on me and the bore.
BD

[Char-Gar]

FASmus --- you got it backwards. Condom bullets will remove lead fouling, but lead bullets won't remove copper fouling.

[georgewxxx]

Sorry Charger, he said it like it is.

[Ole]

I use Gunslick's foaming bore cleaner in all my rifles for copper fouling.

One or two applications of this stuff removes all the copper mini nuggets from the barrel with very little effort or scrubbing.

If you're shooting lead boolits, then a brush and Hoppes is the way to go.

[clearwater]

I don't like wipeout for any significant cleaning. The patches come out blue at first and then come out clean but the gun is still dirty! Seriously had me scratching my head with a badly fouled pre-64. Sweets and similar solvents are better. For best results I have never found anything better than JB and Kroil used together. It is the only thing that has ever worked as well as advertised.

The wipeout works much better than the others for copper fouling. But this is after
I get the powder fouling out first with a few patches of Hoppe's or remclean or
JB. It was the only thing that got my old 03 ready for cast.

[felix]

Actually, Forrest is correct. The number of shots becomes significanly less when there is little or no tin in the mix, but plenty of antimony, and the velocity is such that absolutely no leading appears after a shooting session. Antimony has minute barbs that will scrape a barrel when given a chance, taking all kinds of junk out with successive boolits. I use this technique to smooth barrels including their throats. ... felix

[RU shooter]

In my experience ,which is small compared to some here is with my 2 groove 03A3 barrel ,Its must be extremely rough about 4" to the to the muzzle and fouls very badly with jacketed in that area,I finially got tired of trying to get the copper out every time before I would shoot cast If I keep the vel. with my boolits below 1700 or so fps No leading ,and accuracy the same as If I go through the hassle of cleaning out the copper mine. So with my barrel anyways copper in the bore is do able with limitations.


Tim

[FAsmus]

Gentelmen;

Thanks Felix!

I know that the cleaning of rifles is dear to the hearts of us all and I'm really as interested in it as anyone under the sun.

On the other hand a fellow has to note what actually happens when a well considered cast bullet load is fired over time.

My insight about metal fouling was proven ( for me anyway ) by the way my old M1903 Springfield responded to changing from jacketed to cast as seasons changed and I either hunted or shot in CB matches. The method I told in this thread was tried in order to avoid the typical damage to rifle bores by cleaning rods. It worked perfectly and I have never gone back to powerful cleaners and endless ( damaging ) work with clenaing rods and bore guides etc.

The fellow who commented about "cleaning" lead from an ill-considered cast bullet load is well taken.

I admit that I have made up such a poorly thought out load and leaded up the barrel of a nice Marlin 336 badly enough that the rifling was nearly invisable. A pass with the cleaning rod made it clear that nothing less than heavy-duty work with ( shudder ) steel wool would even begin to cut it out of the bore.

Instead I loaded up several quite minimal reduced loads with jacketed, went out to my casting shed and fired them into a pile of rags. The first couple slugs came out virtually lead-plated. By the fourth round only light lead wash was visable and #5 looked normal. Time used; 30 - 40 minutes total. Bore damage; none.

Anyway, many cleaning techniques have their place. For cast bullet shooting a man should not use the same procedures as work with jacketed. In a word; less is better, none at all is best.

Good morning,
Forrest

[clearwater]

Gentelmen;

Thanks Felix!

I know that the cleaning of rifles is dear to the hearts of us all and I'm really as interested in it as anyone under the sun.

On the other hand a fellow has to note what actually happens when a well considered cast bullet load is fired over time.

My insight about metal fouling was proven ( for me anyway ) by the way my old M1903 Springfield responded to changing from jacketed to cast as seasons changed and I either hunted or shot in CB matches. The method I told in this thread was tried in order to avoid the typical damage to rifle bores by cleaning rods. It worked perfectly and I have never gone back to powerful cleaners and endless ( damaging ) work with clenaing rods and bore guides etc.

The fellow who commented about "cleaning" lead from an ill-considered cast bullet load is well taken.

I admit that I have made up such a poorly thought out load and leaded up the barrel of a nice Marlin 336 badly enough that the rifling was nearly invisable. A pass with the cleaning rod made it clear that nothing less than heavy-duty work with ( shudder ) steel wool would even begin to cut it out of the bore.

Instead I loaded up several quite minimal reduced loads with jacketed, went out to my casting shed and fired them into a pile of rags. The first couple slugs came out virtually lead-plated. By the fourth round only light lead wash was visable and #5 looked normal. Time used; 30 - 40 minutes total. Bore damage; none.

Anyway, many cleaning techniques have their place. For cast bullet shooting a man should not use the same procedures as work with jacketed. In a word; less is better, none at all is best.

Good morning,
Forrest

What do folks make of the claim in Lee's book about liquid Alox
cleaning out the gun as bullets are fired.

[Bret4207]

I've been reading Forrests writings on various machining boards for some years. I have never seen him give bad info.

[Bret4207]

What do folks make of the claim in Lee's book about liquid Alox
cleaning out the gun as bullets are fired.

I'm not familiar with that statement, but I tend to take most of Lee's book with a grain of salt. He could be right, but he sometimes takes an odd slant of the "why" of things IMO.

[clearwater]

I'm not familiar with that statement, but I tend to take most of Lee's book with a grain of salt. He could be right, but he sometimes takes an odd slant of the "why" of things IMO.


He weighed his handgun, then fired bullets coated in Alox, weighed it again
and it weighed less. IE. the bullets cleaned out some fouling.

[Crash_Corrigan]

fasmus: I bought an old SMLE that had been bubbicized in a nice way. It came with a couple of hundred surplus j word boolits which I fired and enjoyed.

The next week without cleaning the gun I fired some of my home cast rounds. The first few were accurate but then it all went south.

After a while the bollits were keyholing at the paper at only 50 yds and I quit.

When I got home I looked at the barrel. It was so leaded up that I could not see the groooves in the barrel. It looked like I had a liner inside the barrel made of lead.

After spending many hours of scrubbing and waiting for Kroil to undermine the lead I finally got a clean barrel. This gun will never have another j word boolit fired through it as long as I own it.

I suppose I shoulda fired a few j word boolits through it and saved a lot of work. Coulda, shoulda and woulda.....the story of my life.

[runfiverun]

his alox covered boolits worked in this application. cause they were soft,large enough to work properly.
if the ones that made the lead in the bbl were made this same way. it wouldn't matter if they were lubed with crayons and hand lotion.
4" bbls, low pressures/velocities. all the boolit has to do is fit the bbl.
a powder change could have cleaned out the bbl just as easily.

[Frank46]

Having cleaned a fair bunch of both sporting and military rifles so I could shoot cast bullets I've drawn a few conclusions.
1. just when you think you got all the copper and powder fouling out, you haven't
2. Don't use brass jags when using butch's or any ammonia based cleaners or you get the blue stain, where possible I use some of the plastic or aluminum jags to prevent this.
3. Auto rubbing compound. I use the heavy duty red stuff after scrubbing out as much copper and powder fouling as i can see. I make up a heavy paste with hoppe's and the red stuff. Then stroke the barrel about 50 times each way. Clean out all the junk and gunk with patches annointed with hoppe's
Then make up a heavy paste with the white auto polishing compound. 50 strokes each way. then clean out all traces with hoppes and patches.
4. To check if any copper is still present run a wet patch with hoppes and let sit for a few days. If you get any green copper is still present.
5. One thing I did learn is that the use of the red and white auto body rubbing and
polishing compounds actually do to a noticeable extent polish the interior of the barrel. Have done this enough times to have actually noticed this. I recently did a long branch #4MKI* two groove barrel. At first just patches with hoppes to clean any junk out. Then dried with clean patches. After the red and white compounds were used, the amount of light seen off the interior surfaces was greater. They use this on car finishes and have not seen any damage in their use.
6. Really worn and/or pitted barrels have seen an improvement using the compounds. While it won't take out pits. It will clean up the metal surfaces around them.
7. I use butche's, Hoppe's, rem clean, iosso bore paste and the auto body compounds to clean barrels. each barrel will respond differently so have to vary a cleaning regimen according to how a barrel cleans up.
And in closing you could say that I'm kinda anal retentive about getting out the copper. And the final test with hoppe's over night or for even a few days and not getting the dreaded green stain shows that most if not all copper has been removed. The two worst barrels cleaned were an 1898 krag and a 1895 winchester both in 30-40 krag. The 1898 krag has a pretty good bore and is nice and shiney inside. The 1895 winchester took a long time as it was really grungy and there was some light pitting that had copper fouling really locked in. I still run wet patches through both to see if I get copper fouling. None has shown up to date. The hoppes won't by itself remove the copper like the ammoniated cleaners will. Sometimes you have to work through the layers of copper and powder fouling
eventually you'll get it out. So here is my take on cleaning barrels for shooting cast bullets. Fwiw my procedures work for me. Frank

[Bret4207]

He weighed his handgun, then fired bullets coated in Alox, weighed it again
and it weighed less. IE. the bullets cleaned out some fouling.

As r5r said, it wasn't necessarily the alox that did it. As I said, he sometimes takes an odd slant on the "why" of things. I'm not saying he's dead wrong, just takes and odd view.

[FAsmus]

Crash;

C: The next week without cleaning the gun I fired some of my home cast rounds. The first few were accurate but then it all went south.

After a while the bollits were keyholing at the paper at only 50 yds and I quit.

F: My! That is a terrible story!

Perhaps I should always include a disclaimer when posting procedures that worked for me - consintrating on the "worked for me" part.

Just curious here; what was the cast load that fouled things up so badly?

Good morning,
Forrest

[Bret4207]

Don't worry about it Forrest. I've done the disclaimer and it doesn't make a difference.